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IndyCar's Graham Rahal won't enter NASCAR Nationwide race at Mid-Ohio

June 20, 2013

Graham Rahal would like to do a NASCAR race on a road course one day. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Izod IndyCar Series team owner Bobby Rahal says that although Graham Rahal will not contest the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Aug. 17, he hopes his son and IndyCar driver will figure out a way to do so in the future.

“That's his desire,” Bobby Rahal said ahead of this Sunday's IndyCar race at Iowa Speedway. “I think it would be great for him to try. I drove [in the old International Race of Champions] and I drove a NASCAR race, and it's all interesting. Anything you can drive in, you get better. Now, I think he's more concerned with making it happen next year. It would be really great for him to try and I think he would do very well at it.”

Graham Rahal, 24, a one-time IndyCar winner who was raised outside of Columbus, Ohio, confirmed to Autoweek that a run in NASCAR first stock-car event at the 2.3-mile Lexington, Ohio, facility “won't happen” this year. His father, a three-time CART World Series Indy-car champion and 1986 Indianapolis 500-winner, made starts in Formula One, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and one NASCAR Cup Series for the famous Wood Brothers in 1984 at the old Riverside road course. He sustained an early mechanical failure and finished 40th.

Graham Rahal, almost a seven-year veteran of Champ Car and IndyCar, has made five starts in the Rolex 24 at Daytona Grand-Am event -- winning overall with Ganassi Racing in 2011 -- and raced briefly in A1GP. Rahal, in his first season with Rahal Letterman Lanigan, is mired in 17th place in driver points this season, a runner-up finish at Long Beach offset by seven finishes of 15th or worse in nine races so far in 2013.

Bobby Rahal said that although the NASCAR experience could ultimately help his son as an overall driver, RLL is not involved in facilitating the experiment.

“I think he is interested in doing some of the road courses, but in NASCAR, everybody wants money,” he said, especially if you're going to be with a team you can succeed with. You want to get Penske or Gibbs or Hendrick or any of those guys.”